Review | Funky Smugglers

Ever wanted to be one of those TSA dudes that piss passengers off by asking them to take off their shoes at the airport? No? Well, what about being a TSA during the time it was all funky? Ha! I caught your attention right?

11-Bit studios, recently came out with a game called Funky Smugglers for the iOS and Android. It plays a lot like that one old-school board game called Operation, except the people are actually moving and your job is to try to pick out harmful items that they’re carrying before they board on a plane. It’s a simple idea but it goes a long way. Throughout the game you’ll be boarding planes with waves of passengers but in each wave they will be holding different items in different positions, making it a bit more difficult each time you finish a round. Of course, to help you out, the game offers a couple of power ups to either speed things up, slow things down or even help you pick out items a lot easier. You start off with three lives and with each mistake you make, you’ll be taking a hit and after three of those, you lose the game.

If you’re familiar with Jetpack Joyride, a game developed by Halfbrick Studios, the gameplay is similar in a sense that you’ll be trying to go as far as you can with the help of power ups and skill. Each time you lose, you’ll be starting all over but with different objectives to make it a bit more challenging and rewarding. I say rewarding because each objective that you complete, earns you a certain amount of coins that you can use in the….in-game store.

In the store, you’ll find Item packs that let you change the look of the characters, the items you see on the screen, and being able to play different music. You’ll also find upgrades that will help you manage to boost your score and make things a bit more interesting. For example, you can purchase an upgrade that will help you hold your multiplier a bit longer than usual so you can earn a bigger bonus in score or let you start at a certain wave.

Another cool aspect about the game is on the main menu. There’s a sign that let’s you join a limited time team battle, where it sometimes pits iPhone players against Android players or phone users vs tablet users. If you join in the team battle, the score that you get at the end of each game will be added to an overall leaderboard that helps out the cause. It’s a very cool incentive to start playing the game again.

One last thing I need to talk about is the music. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing. It managed to make my son start bouncing up and down to the rhythm, which is the most adorablest thing evAR! Anyways, I couldn’t help but bob my head the music…..like a lot. Oh! and if you’re playing with headphones on, you’ll have an amazing experience. Trust me.

I certainly enjoyed the hell out of this game and I highly recommend it those who would like to test out how good of TSA you’ll be. For a mere .99 cents, I’d say go download if you want to get funky.